Performance management and execution

D=>K=>I=>A/A/A…. A foundational “formula” for success!

 

 

As a guy that does gravitate to formulas, processes and repeatable management disciplines, this essay has been brewing for a while.  A few weeks ago, I had a great conversation with a young friend who was interviewing for a number of very different roles.  In that conversation, we focused in on the fact that while the roles were very different (one in a small non-profit, one in a large ad agency), the actual “foundational work” of the roles had some clear similarities and those common ideas triggered this essay.  Regardless of your role, or nature of the organization where you work, these simple ideas or process steps are incredibly common and deeply important in order to drive successful sustainable results.

 

The foundational formula/process/discipline is made up of a set of actions that are done in sequence, and follow the path of: 

 

Data->Knowledge->Insights-> Action/Assess/Apply

 

D: Data

 

Noun: facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis:

 

The first step is always to dig into the data…. and never get tired or bored, it always worth it!  I for example pull together a weekly performance dashboard for my leadership team, and rather than have someone in IT or finance pull it for me, I take an hour every Monday digging into last weeks results and building the dashboard myself.  I find that weekly process so helpful and EVERY WEEK I find little nuggets of trends, aberrations and surprises that allow me to understand where we are as a business and what actions we need to take going forward.  This first step, all about the data, is a step EVERYONE should do!  Don’t let a fear of Math, or a lack of formal “data analytics training” stop you from diving in…. a vital and REQUIRED first step in this “foundational formula!”

 

K: Knowledge

 

Noun: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject

 

By taking the step above and consistently digging into the data, we can gain knowledge and a deeper “understanding of a subject.”  Data on its’ own is relatively inert.  The purpose of the data dig “experience” is to gain understanding and build knowledge over time so you “convert” the data into actionable insights.

 

I: Insights

 

Noun: a deep understanding of a person or thing

 

Having a “deep understanding” of the work at hand is the big part of finding success.  While this evolves over time, the process steps reviewed above allow you to always be updating YOUR “deep understanding” of the business and will push you to take those thoughts/ideas and translate them into action!

 

 

A/A/A: 

 

A: Action

 

Noun: the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim

 

Take action, its time to have an impact!  Don’t let the D->K->I phase lull you into passivity or inactivity.  This whole “foundational formula/process” is about taking thoughtful action in the marketplace and the “first A” is vital.  This step takes insights (mentioned above) AND COURAGE.  Step out there, make your recommendation be heard and drive to action!

 

A: Assess

 

Noun: evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of

 

With the “Action” step fully in-place, lets make sure we are ready to “evaluate” and learn from the “Action” deployed.  We can never learn enough, but too many skip this step entirely.  The amount of work to get the “Action” deployed is often so significant, many “run out of gas” at this step and lose energy to “evaluate” the impact/costs/ROI/etc. of the “Action” and fail to glean very available and much needed additional “Data” to help this process strengthen over time.  Many of you have read my essay on the “Curbside Debrief” https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2014/02/selling-curbside-debrief.html

This tool is a handy way to ALWAYS take a step to “Assess” or learn after every significant “Action.”

A: Apply

 

Noun: give one’s full attention to a task; work hard, administer

 

This final step as another call to turn learnings into “Action.”  If you have “Assessed” the impact of “Action,” once again don’t get passive!  Turn those ideas or approaches into immediate improvement plans and deploy…. No need to wait and start the process again, dive in and “Apply” those learnings and drive success!

 

 

Well there you go, the simple ( and vital) D->K->I->A/A/A model.  I hope you can use it in your work, whatever the organization / industry and let it have a positive impact of the challenges of the moment, and help you be more successful with your challenges/opportunities over time!

A “Virtuous Cycle” in the Pivot to Growth

 

 

Like so many companies and organizations, this past year has been incredibly challenging. Leading a company through the reality of Covid has been so intense and difficult, certainly the most difficult challenge of my 35 year career!  Here we are as we enter May, we are finishing up our on-site vaccination clinics over the next few weeks, finishing up our return-to-work planning and prep activities and starting to look at easing some of our Covid policies (e.g. outdoor mask policy, etc.).  Along with these policy/readiness adjustments, we are dealing with the difficult (and wonderful in many ways) challenge of a booming business, growing very quickly, that is pushing our capabilities and capacities across our system.  We are clearly in a big “Pivot to Growth” moment and I have refreshed myself on some lessons that will help us and may help you as well.

 

Virtuous Cycle

 

I want to emphasize the first word here, “Virtuous!”  When businesses are dramatically beating budget and forecast, and outstripping existing capabilities/capacities, it is very easy to devolve into a “Destructive Cycle” of anger/blame/finger-pointing/etc.  Do your best as a leader to stay calm, remind everyone that we are in this together, and that in so many ways we are lucky to have the problems of a high growth business.  Remind yourself that “anger/blame & finger pointing” are rarely highlighted and key leadership tools for progressive/successful leaders in good times or bad.  Stay calm, keep your cool, keep your team together and work the problem at hand!

 

Work the Problem

 

At least for our company in this Pivot to Growth, there are multiple problems all occurring at once.  That dynamic is actually not surprising and should not be allowed to cause confusion.  Look at the landscape, idea the problems and help the team to break them down into bite-sized chunks.  Remember “Aunt Lorraine’s Law”????  â€œTake small bites and chew thoroughly”!  

That lesson is so true now… help your team on this and get everyone focused on THE problem at hand and have other teams working on ANOTHER problem at hand but be careful to have one group working on many problems at once….. usually a situation that causes confusion and limited progress!

 

Search for Root Causes

 

As teams get into problem solving, we can find ourselves actually fixing a problem at hand and being tempted to quickly move on to the next issue at hand.  As a leader help your team to slow down enough to try to identify the “root causes” to the problem so we might possible not just fix the problem at hand but identify and solve the deeper “root causes” of the problem to we don’t face this challenge again.  A technique that I learned many years ago is the “ask “why” five times” rule.  Once a problem/issue is clearly identified, force yourself and your team to go five layers deep…. Ask, “Why did this issue occur”??? then when that answer is clarified, ask “why” did that occur??? and keep that routine going for five layers of asking “whys?”

 

Deploy solutions and measure success

 

The best part of problem solving is actually fixing the problems/challenges at hand…. duh!  No brilliant insight there but again we are so often tempted to fix it and move on; not good enough!  Use the measurement tools at hand or build the measurement tools to assess just how much or how well we have actually fixed the problem and improved performance.  We only really learn true performance improvement through measuring our success and continuously improving on that improved performance.

 

Work the problem

 

Repeat the “Virtuous Cycle!”

 

 

I hope that this simple “cycle” can be helpful as you and your organization begin your pivot to growth post Covid!  There will be challenges ahead (there always are) but none so daunting as the challenges we all faced this past year.  We can work our way through the challenges of growth by keeping our cool, reminding the team that we are all in this together and working the “Virtuous Cycle” above….. those will be key ingredients for solving the growth problems that lie ahead!

Work the process & work ON the process!

 

It’s been a wild ride over these past 20 months since we bought Bolthouse Farms back from Campbell’s.  The challenges of turning around a business in steep decline, executing a “carve-out” of a business that had been integrated into a bigger entity, rebuilding a team across all functions/levels … and then Covid hit! In the midst of these significant challenges, the business is growing, the team stronger than ever, and we have learned so much and become stronger through facing and overcoming challenges in our way.  A great lesson was shared last week in a “zoom call,” that I want to pass along today.

 

Late last week, we had our weekly S&OP (sales & operations planning) call and one of our excellent, long-term Bolthouse veterans John (no last names on the blog!) was on the call early when I signed in.  He and I had a couple of minutes to catch up and were talking about our fast growing beverage business and how hard it was to get the right flavors, in the right size, in the right level of inventory, to the right customer …etc!  We were talking about how hard it was to run a tight S&OP process in a high growth business and John shared a powerful insight….” You know Bill, we have to work the process and work ON the process at the same time!”

 

That simple phrase really hit home in this moment/situation, but is so true broadly.  Too often we don’t even do the first part very well; we often don’t even have a consistent business process and if we do have one we don’t execute it in a consistent, disciplined fashion.  Knowing this, the idea that we have to always “work ON the process,” identifying ways to improve WHAT we do and HOW we do it was the deep insight of John’s comment.  

 

Even though our business is booming, and so many good things are happening, we need to push ourselves to improve our processes broadly.  To often companies wait for things to go bad to start thinking about changes, the trick is to dive into this work when things are going well… that’s the perfect time to work and work ON your processes!

 

A few helpful tips:

 

Ø  Think about your business/enterprise/organization and identify the key operational processes that are required to get the work done, and insure you have a structured, disciplined process in place.

Ø  Once those core processes are set, don’t get bored with them!  Execute and lead those processes with intensity and efficiency and insure the broader organization knows that those process steps are key to the organization’s success.

Ø  Look for the processes and that need improvement and work ON those processes very publicly.  Identify and implement improvement steps and you will insure that your processes will continue to improve over time!

 

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